If it saves just one life

06 May 2025

There’s talk about death and some might say I am insensitive here and if you don’t fancy that then please read something which will make you happy

I’ve heard this phrase come up a few times recently, I think mostly on Radio 4.

If it saves just one life, isn’t it worth doing?

For some reason the presenter didn’t dare give the correct answer to this question:

No it fucking isn’t.

Here’s why.

Everyone has to die.

All of us. Me, you, your accountant, your pet. If it lives, it dies.

What happens when a human person dies in most societies is they establish what the cause was and they write that on a piece of paper and someone has to sign it and then that’s that done.

There are a range of causes which have varying probability across demographics. If you smoke a lot of tobacco, you can reasonably expect that to be mentioned. Otherwise you pretty much get what you get.

Some things are safer than others.

If you’re super into wrestling crocodiles or motorcycle stunts or maybe you’re that guy who sneaks into building sites and climbs cranes then you probably know you’re tempting fate. If you eat a lot of kale and wear sunscreen and read fanfiction all day then there’s less danger there.

In between, there are things we deem to be necessary or important where people take a calculated risk. Firefighters. Train drivers. X-ray technicians. These people do important work which I would imagine comes with a likely reduced lifespan.

Nico Boyce. Car driver. Risk taker.

There are things we all do every day which are statistically more hazardous to life. Walking down stairs. Driving a car. Cooking meat. Taking a shower.

Which of those are you going to quit to marginally increase your lifespan expectation value?

Being riskier is not in itself sufficient justification to ban something.

I think we can all agree that knowing the risk alone isn’t enough information to end the argument. Here are some examples:

• Driving is one of the most dangerous things we do day to day, but we live with that (well, mostly we live) because sometimes people and/or things need to be in other places.
• Alcohol is super bad for your health, but it is enjoyable and it enables us to tolerate our loved ones and make business deals and it keeps a lot of people employed.
• Medical trials can be risky for the participants but the net value of improving medical science justifies this in most people’s minds.

Oh the other hand there are things where banning has won the argument. This is usually because the risk outweighs the value generated. For example, handguns are banned in the UK. Shooting clubs can use rifles, farmers stick to shotguns, we didn’t see the value in keeping handguns following the Dunblane massacre. I would argue we should be looking to ban tobacco on a similar basis.

The two items I heard this “If it saves just one life, isn’t it worth doing?” question come up were relating to younger drivers and to internet filtering. Someone whose son died in a car accident wanted young drivers banned from taking more than one passenger. Someone whose daughter took her own life after diving into some dark corners of the web wanted a whitelisting approach to web access in the UK.

I do understand if you have suffered a recent bereavement you might look to find a crusade.

On the other hand, could we bring in people with a more objective view to temper the impulse to ban things? Perhaps this role in these conversations could have been fulfilled by the journalists of the BBC?

The conclusion I have is that we in Britain are increasingly unwilling to challenge other viewpoints. This is how you end up with people like Farage.

Rational people need to stand up and say “This reasoning is not good and I think your proposal is flawed” and “Let’s see the data and consider the pros and cons” but also call it out when ridiculous arguments are being deployed with the sole intention of dividing people, such as targeting trans people or other cultures.

For a time I worried about speaking up because I was concerned about the risk of upsetting people. Now I think there’s value in being unafraid to be vocal regarding values and rationality.

I’m going to appropriate slogans of irrationalists. Make risk great again. You can have my car key when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.